Krasnoyarsk Mutual Fire Insurance Society (1904-1917)

Abstract

The subject of the study is the organization and activity of the Krasnoyarsk Mutual Fire Insurance Society. On the basis of the historical and genetic method, the reasons for the origin of the insurance business in the Yenisei province, the leading trends in its development during the second half of the XIX - early XX centuries, changes that occurred under the influence of the First World War are analyzed. The application of the historical-systematic method allowed the authors to determine the role and place of the city mutual insurance society in the emerging fire insurance system in one of the provincial centers of Eastern Siberia. The historical-comparative method made it possible to identify the differences between mutual insurance companies and joint-stock companies. The statistics of fires and the scale of losses from them grew in the Russian Empire in the second half of the 19th - early 20th centuries. At the same time, a fire insurance system was being formed. A specific non–commercial form of insurance was mutual insurance (the main types are zemstvo and city), which arose due to the fact that the services of private insurance companies were inaccessible to a wide range of the population. In the Yenisei province , the only society of this type appeared only at the beginning of the XX century. Krasnoyarsk City Mutual Insurance Society for a short period of its existence could not significantly change the situation in the local insurance market, where the dominant position was occupied by branches of joint-stock insurance companies. Nevertheless, his activity has had a beneficial effect on the development of the insurance business in the city by reducing tariffs, supporting fire-fighting measures of the city authorities. The First World War carried the threat of loss of organizational and financial independence of mutual insurance companies, since the government became interested in the idea of introducing a state monopoly of fire insurance in order to compensate for the budget deficit.